Ronimo Games has this week given us Awesomenauts, a class-oriented, team-based, multi-player only, 2D platformer.
Awesomenauts’ story is simple: You’ve been hired to destroy an enemy Solar Drill. You’ve got a team to do it with, but you’ve also got to protect your employer’s Solar Drill from the enemy’s mercenaries. Whichever side’s Drill survives gets to continue their mining operation.
Each level has a Drill at either end, protected by one or more impassable turrets. Between is a maze of platforms and tunnels in which the players attempt to out-maneuver one another and blast away with simple guns and special abilities. There are six classes to choose from, none of which are a real surprise. There’s a melee guy, a demolitions guy, a healing guy, etc. As the player earns in-game money, they may upgrade their class, customizing it with a variety or skills and weapons—all of which is reset at the beginning of each map. The number of possible upgrades available to your characters increases as your player account earns levels, and you then have to choose which things will be available at the store at the beginning of the levels, meaning essentially two levels of customization for the characters.
The gameplay itself is rather simple, and involves little variety. Jump around the level and mash buttons seems to be the order of the day most of the time, with careful moves usually punished by quicker players. Since the game is always multiplayer (with the exception of a ‘practice’ mode, which is intended only for testing out new weapons and such, not for actual play) there is an essential variety to the experience, which is were the fun comes in.
There are three roles to be played on each team, and as in most games of the type, balancing these roles is the key to victory. Each team must have some players who are defending, some who are attacking (first the turrets, then the Drill) with the help of their team’s drones (little robots than quietly absorb enemy fire to protect the players), and some who are actively attacking others in the field. Most of the time, this balance is off—almost everyone seems to want to be running around on the attack, so many matches devolve into perpetual deathmatch or a one-sided quick victory, with no one attacking or defending—but when you find yourself on a team working in concert, and against a team who are themselves in good balance, the game really shines. The simplistic nature of the controls and combat then becomes an advantage, as it allows the players to really focus on being a team, and not concern themselves with the mechanics of the fight. Out of this comes a more pure feeling of teamwork and accomplishment than is possible in most FPS team games. Unfortunately, these experiences are very rare.
It might be helped with better communication, but this is not really the fault of the developers. Voice chat is included, but in all the games I played against random strangers, I was the only player ever trying to voice chat, and I seemed to be the only one listening as well. This may have also just been my bad luck. The only way to ensure good communication, however, is to play with your friends, but unless you have enough friends to fill both teams, any coordinated team would easily steamroll a team of randoms.
The concept here is good, and the art and style are clever enough. When the game comes together, it really comes together well, but these alignments are unfortunately few. If you have the patience to play through a few bum games to get to a fun match, it’s worth the low price over on XBLA or PSN.
Awesomenauts is available now on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network
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